


when you're gone all the colors fade

by perennial



Category: Witch of Blackbird Pond - Elizabeth George Speare
Genre: Alternate Ending, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-07
Updated: 2015-02-07
Packaged: 2018-03-11 00:14:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3308465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perennial/pseuds/perennial
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kit’s epiphany comes a little too late and she returns to Barbados after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	when you're gone all the colors fade

When she steps off the ship the world spins into a whirl of white and green and blue. She wants to hold it so badly she aches—the blinding sunshine, the crystalline blue water, the heat that sinks in all the way to the bone. Oh this, _this_. Barbados wraps around her like an embrace, like a shout of jubilation, the birds and smells and colors and activity filling the hollow spaces. _I am so happy_ , she tells herself. She is home.

Back in New England she quietly sold a few dresses to book passage and have a little left to live on. She has learned the value of money since the last time she was here, as well as what is truly needed for one’s day to day existence. Now she takes lodging at an inn that is a far cry from the sort she would have patronized as Sir Francis Tyler’s granddaughter, or even as Matthew Wood’s niece: a shabby place, but it is clean and safe and kept by a woman who reminds her of Mercy. She has enough money to last a few weeks. After that—She grits her teeth. There will be no after that.

She finds their old solicitor. He hedges and stalls before flatly refusing to aid her in a course of such folly, but she is not Sir Francis Tyler’s granddaughter for nothing. He makes discreet inquiries. Within two weeks he finds her employment as a governess for a wealthy family with young children, two boys and a girl, none older than eight. All just as she planned it, she congratulates herself.

Some nights, just as she drifts to sleep, she has the sensation that the bed is moving, swaying with the motion of a ship. The depression that sweeps through her is nothing but fatigue; her days are long and wearying; she is tired—that is all.

The children are sweet, however much they keep her busy; and it is a good thing to have such full days, since she is having trouble making friends. She never was good at cultivating friendships, and she realizes now that she never really had to work for them at all: those dear to her have always inserted themselves into her life, never the opposite. The Wood women had taken pains to make her feel at home, as had Hannah. Even in her first life in Barbados, society’s darlings were ever anxious to befriend a girl of her standing, and she had known a pleasant measure of popularity, which she now questions. Where were those friends when her grandfather died and her life fell into shambles? She was humbled in Wethersfield and does not think too highly of herself to labor for her bread, as she once did—but it is still an awkward thing, crossing into an even lower social sphere, especially without anyone to guide her through the transition.

The children have a slave for a nursemaid. Kit asks but she does not know the girl who was Miss Katherine’s faithful shadow all those lifetimes ago. There are other slaves in the household and plenty more toil all over the island. Encountering the trade again makes her feel as though she has stepped out of a daze and can finally see clearly, and with the memory of passionate words in her ears she is sickened at the sight; but she is helpless to alter their situation. Her grandfather might have done much—the realization is a bitter one. So much wasted opportunity, so much misplaced influence.

On her days off she goes to the harbor and watches the ships. She closes her eyes and lets the sunlight dance over her face. Above her the white clouds coil and unfurl. She watches the water shine as though diamonds have been strewn across it. The wind tying knots in her hair, the screaming gulls, the shout of the sailors as they load and unload cargo: she wishes she could gather it in her hands and press it into her heart.

It makes her smile sometimes—to imagine the horror on her grandfather’s face to see how far she has fallen. Then to imagine the pride, too, to see what she has made of herself. Independence is difficult and satisfying in equal measures. To discover what she is made of when on her own—to do hard things and sometimes fail but often succeed—to _try_ , and to be brave, and perhaps shed tears but not give up—to see how wide and high is the stretch of her soul, oh! what a wonder!

And other moments, to see the deep, frightening depths she might plunge into if she is not careful or the long lonely road ahead—at these times she longs for Hannah’s hearthside with every fiber of her being. She wishes for Rachel’s worn hands moving through her hair, for Mercy’s greeting in the morning, for Judith’s blithe smile, for the stolid guardianship of her uncle. She wishes for John’s steady voice reading, for Prudence’s sunlit head under her chin. She wishes for afternoons atop a thatched roof and walks home through the twilight.

She breathes the wild ocean winds and soaks her skin in sunshine. She sits in the shade beneath the vivid green foliage and she roams the chaotic market streets. She swims and sings and laughs when she wants to. _This is enough_ , she tells herself, and she doesn’t know if it is a reminder or an argument. _This is what you wanted. You knew how it would be_.

~

They are playing in the garden when Smith comes to fetch her. Kit calms the boys long enough to hear the message: a visitor. She is surprised; who would be visiting her? Who could possibly know she is here? He coughs—a sailor.

She leaves the children with Bethlehem and follows him, heart hammering, out of the sunshine into the darkness of the long hall that stretches from the rear French doors to the front entry. A man in a blue coat stands waiting, hat under his arm, staring at the artwork covering the walls.

“Nat.”

He turns. She can see the color of his eyes even in the dim light. He is so handsome she is lightheaded.

“Mistress Tyler,” he says formally, whether for the benefit of the house or not she has no way of telling. His coat is new, and the buttons gleam in the light from the door.

She is all confusion—over those eyes that are bluer than the ocean outside her window; that he is here, standing before her, looking at her; that he is _here_ : it is the wrong season for him to be in the Indies. The world seems to have gone at a slant, and she can feel the last few months sliding away, piling up to make room for piercing understanding.

She says, “What are you doing here?”

“What are _you_ doing here,” he fires back. “I had the devil’s own trouble finding you. Of all the things to do, Kit!” Those blue eyes are blazing. His initial dignity has vanished. Here he is, the Nat she knows, berating her before two sentences are out. “Hannah has been inconsolable. Your aunt and cousins too, I’m sure.”

“Hannah sent you?”

“Well—no. That is.” Suddenly they are both acutely aware of listening ears lingering in the shadowed corridors. “Shall we continue this conversation outside?” she says politely, and he nods and follows.

They step from the coolness of the hall into bright hot sunshine. Kit leads him to a pathway shaded by broadleafed tree ferns and they walk in silence for a time. She watches him out of the corner of her eye.

His anger vanishes as though melted by the sun. She is wearing a light dress, made of fabric that seems to float across her skin instead of weighing her down, unlike the heavy cloth of Wethersfield. Lines of sun reach through the leaves above them to touch the ground. Birds flit busily about, chirping and hopping from branch to branch, filling the greenery with spots of color. He looks at her so steadily that she flushes.

He says, “It suits you. This place.”

The passion is gone from his voice, leaving—what? Resignation?

She searches for words. “Well. Well. It isn’t quite home anymore.”

He looks harder at her. “Wethersfield?” he prompts.

She shakes her head.

“Of course, the Meadow.” But no.

They reach the end of the path. The great house is set on a hill overlooking the town proper, and from this vantage they can see the yard of spires that denotes the harbor.

Eyes forward, she tells him, “I’ve watched the ships come in every day since I arrived. I have looked for you every day.” Her heart beats so fast she can hardly speak the words.

“Kit,” he says, and it tells her everything she needs to know.

“I’ve known it for a long time, though I’ve only now realized it. Deep down I’ve known since—since—oh, what a fool I am, Nat!”

Then she is in his arms and he in hers, his mouth pressed hard against hers, the salt of his skin on her tongue. She feels as though she is dissolving and reassembling with every breath in and out. She glories in the feel of his arm under her palm, the warmth and hard muscle; in his body so close, his hand on the small of her back. Here is the truth of what she sought, back in Wethersfield and here in Barbados: nothing more than him, and he is everything. The life and solidity of him, tangible, here, warming her, mixing with hers—she cannot stop smiling for the joy of it, for the happiness that bursts through her chest at the elation in his eyes, to know herself as beloved as she loves.

“And I came back and you were gone,” he is saying. “I’ve thought of nothing else for months, Kit. Oh, I was angry! And bereft—I’ll admit that too. I thought you would wait for me. Then I had to wait for the ice to break up before I could haul off to make you see reason and fetch you back. That is—” he hesitates, but she has her answer ready.

“Summer there, winter here,” she agrees. The plans they make in consequence are simple but sweet to tongue and ear and heart: to rejoin those she has so desperately missed; to still be fed by the sunshine and colors of her birthplace; to make a new home together in Saybrook, Barbados, and the open sea. He has been her home all along, after all. Where his heart goes, there is hers.

The new ketch is worthy of every ounce of pride that shines off of its captain. She sees the name painted on the side and laughs over the impudence of the man until he silences her with a kiss. He refuses to take her aboard however—not yet.

“Not until you’re mine for good,” he tells her. Not until they are each other’s for keeps.


End file.
